Lonnie Poole worked hard to make a name for himself.
Raised on a farm south of Raleigh, N.C., he earned enough money to attend college by selling produce. After graduating from NC State in 1959 with a degree in civil engineering, he went on to build one of the most successful and innovative waste haulers in the country, Waste Industries USA, Inc.
But it took more than long hours to overcome long odds. Poole excelled because he skillfully applied the knowledge he gained in the classroom and stayed true to the values he learned from his family and his faith: loyalty to his workers and customers, unwavering honesty and an endless search for improvement.
The Poole name – and values – are now a permanent part of NC State. Lonnie and Carol Poole and their family donated $40 million to the university in December – the largest gift in NC State’s history – to support the College of Management, now the Poole College of Management. The donation will underwrite the creation of a Center of Excellence in Sustainability, complementing and enhancing NC State’s focus on technology, innovation, entrepreneurship and globalization.
The gift includes $2.5 million to fund the Carol Johnson Poole Club House at the Lonnie Poole Golf Course and $500,000 to establish the Carol Johnson Poole Endowment for Humanities and Social Sciences.
Poole is proud of his decades-long relationship with NC State.
“If there hadn’t been an NC State at a very affordable rate, I would not have gotten a college education,” he says. “And I would not have been able to succeed in the business world as I have.”